Pages

Thursday, 16 August 2012

Being Independent !

Freedom, if there were to be any, should not be exercised but it should be evident. If you're made to exercise it, it becomes a right, not an inherent element of your existence, something that it is supposed to be. Every 15th August, we wake up with a lot of energy and pride for ours being an Indian. We listen to the PM give his speech from the Red Fort, we listen to songs of patriotism on the TV and the Radio, we fly kites and we have our own discussions and tributes in our own small words to commemorate those who gave it all to attain our freedom. Doing all this is an attribution to the fact that we're still concerned about our foundations and about our history, and also indicates the pride we have for our nation. Every single part of it is right and couldn't be done in a better way. But the question is, if we get it wrong on the rest 364 days of the year ?

On 15th of August, our leaders, both national, as well as our leaders at our respective institutions, speak of our freedom and how proud and flattered we should feel to have it, but these very guys take it back when it comes to rest of the days. Your life, as long as you're in your office, belongs to your employer. But after office hours, they don't even possess the right to take even a minute of it. The reality though is very much away from it.You're made to work for extra hours with pending assignments being cited as a reason. The reality is that, they knew you'll take 3 hours more after the office, and to get those extra three hours, they assigned it to you.At times, your company even pays you lesser than you deserve and when you protest, you're terminated. Remember the case of Air India pilots ?

The national leaders, on the other 364 days, enslave you without your notice. You work as laborers and end up paying more tax than the worth of what you get back. Your money gets deposited in their Swiss bank accounts and you feel good just because you live in a free nation. You cant even protest as the govt uses their stringent laws to limit the magnitude of your protest. Remember Ramdev? Not only the government but also the various authorities obliterate you and treat you as if you mean nothing to them. You're denied of your basic right to lawful treatment,timely service and a good, if not best, quality of life.

But the real question is if we ourselves are to be blamed. We always forget the basic fact that the nation belongs to us, and not to the ones who run it. Its us who chose them to run it and if we don't need them, we can, at our will, kick them out. We believe that its our duty to bear with them, its our duty to work as our bosses say, its our duty to wait if the authorities demanded that. We forget, or perhaps intentionally ignore, the laws that were put down to provide justice. Even if we don't get justice, we're not supposed to go down without putting up a fight.But that's what we do. We succumb to injustice without fighting and accept it as our fate. We end up doing much more than we ought to and earning much less than what we ought to, all just because of ourselves. It had to change, it has to change and the change has to come soon or we'll perish under a system of blasphemy,bias and utter injustice. The future belongs to those who have the will to either accept is as it is, or to change it forever. I guess for the time being, we don't have both. Hence, today or tomorrow, we need to change, because if we don't, we'll be the orators as well as the spectators at our own end.